I glanced away, suddenly guilty that I hadn’t been one of those women who had avoided having sex.
One of the suited men whose names I didn’t know spoke up. “Why can’t these women just learn to keep their legs closed?”
He spoke angrily, and my mouth dropped open.
I was talking before I’d even thought through what I was going to say. “It’s not as easy as that. The Trads give off some kind of pheromone that makes them irresistible. The women are acting without the ability to think things through.”
I was literally waiting for him to make a crack about how women rarely thought things through, or something along those lines, but then I remembered how our president was also female, and that it wouldn’t go down so well.
“We’re not going to put this on the women,” President Wesley said. “The Trads are predators, and women are the victims. I won’t hear of the blame being put in the women’s direction.”
That shut the man up.
“My main reason for gathering you all here is to discuss Emperor Elrin’s offer of planet Athion as a place of refuge. There’s one thing that’s been concerning me more than anything. How can we be sure this isn’t a trick on behalf of the Athions? He said himself their females had been struck down by a similar virus to the Trads, so this could all be a big ruse to make it look like the Trads are responsible, when actually they want our women for themselves.”
Casey spoke up from beside me. “They do want our women. No one is denying that. The Athions are a dying race, and we can help fix that. Of course there is going to be something in this for them. They’re not just going to offer up their planet and resources to humanity and not expect anything in return. They’re good people, but not that good.”
She tapped her fingers against her lips and frowned. “So again, I ask, how do we know this isn’t all down to them? They might have been the ones who sent the asteroids in the first place.”
“Several factors.” I counted them off on my fingers. “One, the Athions are known to be a peaceful race. They’ve never caused any friction between themselves and another alien race, where the Trads are known to be cold-hearted and single-minded and will stop at nothing to get what they want or need. And two, all Athions have a blue skin tone. It can vary in shade immensely from one part of the planet to another—for example, the Athions of the Southern Tip are known to be much darker—but they can’t hide that skin tone. Our invaders can blend in perfectly with human society, and, as kind as the Athions are, they’re not capable of walking among us unnoticed.”
The man who’d talked about women keeping their legs shut joined in. “I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves. It’s only been a matter of days, and already we’re talking about sending the women away? We haven’t even tried to fight back yet.”
“It’s hard to fight something you can’t see,” the president pointed out.
I thought back to the theory Casey and I had come up with. “There might be a way. It won’t be easy, but if we use space debris as a way of figuring out if something is hiding out there, then we might be able to pinpoint the ships.”
“Yes, thank you,” she said. “I already have people working on that, though even with large ships, it’s a needle in a haystack.”
So Faw had told President Wesley about the theory Casey and I had come up with. No one had mentioned it to us, however, and I had to wonder if Faw had told the president that we’d been the ones to come up with the idea.
But the president was right, and I remembered using the same phrase about needles and haystacks when I’d thought about it. Space was a big place, and even if we assumed the Trads’ ships were somewhere above our atmosphere, that still didn’t narrow it down much—we were still talking about thousands of miles of space.
The president continued. “The Athion military team—the Custo—will be arriving into our atmosphere in the next couple of days.”
“How will we determine them from the Trads?” someone asked.
Another person spoke up. “What if the Trads try to stop them?”
“They might be shot down before they even get here.”
Worried questions came from all sides of the table.
The president lifted her hand to settle everyone down. “I’ve been assured the Athions are more than prepared for the likes of the Trads. They have technology we haven’t yet developed on Earth, which will protect them.”
“Let’s hope they’ve got the technology to locate the Trad ships as well,” someone else commented.
“And a way of distinguishing Trads from human men,” another man in a suit said. “I hate thinking that people might be considering me to be one of them.”
The man was in his forties and was nowhere near attractive enough to be considered a Trad, but I wasn’t about to say anything.
Excitement fluttered inside me at the idea of the Athions arriving. Would I get to meet them? Despite my job, I’d never gotten to meet an alternate race in person before. These would be military men, hard and tough. Would they be attractive, too? Not so long ago, I would have questioned my ability to find an alien male sexy, but I’d already discovered from my experiences with the Trads that such a thing was possible. Admittedly, the Trads had appeared human, but from what I knew of the Athions, they were all humanoid, too. There were some regional differences among them, but otherwise they all had two arms and two legs, just like us.
A knock came at the door, and a man in a dark suit stepped into the room. “Please excuse the interruption, Madam President, but I’m afraid I need to steal the Las Vegas Observatory team away.”
That was us. I glanced to the men, none of whom appeared to have any clue with this was about either.
“Yes, of course,” she said with a nod. “Whatever you need.”
I rose to my feet, the guys joining me. I wondered what this was about, and hoped nothing bad had happened back at the Observatory. The chance that Molly might be in danger was like ice in my veins, and I hurried to leave the room, anxious to learn what we were needed for.
We stepped out into the corridor together, and the man who’d come to collect us jerked his head to tell us to follow him. I bit my lower lip anxiously, still worried that this might have something to do with Molly.
When we were far enough away from the Situation Room not to be heard, Mike asked, “What’s this about?”
“My name is Adam Calicun. We’re transporting you to another location, not far from here. It’s a research facility. One of the Trads has been brought in—or at least it’s someone who is believed to be a Trad. Actually getting proof of him being one is proving to be more complicated than we first thought. And since you have experience of coming face to face with them, we thought you might be able to help with a way of identifying them.”
I thought of just how face to face I’d come with one of the Trads and had to glance away, my cheeks heating. If only he knew. It occurred to me that there may have to be a point where I’d need to tell the government officials how close I’d come to being one of the women the Trads had taken. I might unwittingly have information they would find useful.
Aleandro frowned. “Where are we going?”
“I’m afraid I can’t tell you the location. It’s a secret facility, but it’s not too far from here.”
“We’re going back out into the city?” I asked, fresh nerves roiling through me. I’d felt safe in the White House—and ironically, I’d felt safe inside the Observatory, too, even though I hadn’t been—and the idea of going back into the open made me nervous.
“Yes, we are, but you’ll be traveling in an armored vehicle. You’ll have nothing to worry about.”
“But you have a Trad in custody?”
“That’s right.”
I was anxious about seeing one again, but I couldn’t let my own worries affect how I did my job. I’d sworn I’d do everything I could to fight against the Trad invasion, and this was most likely just the start. People living on the outside had it far wors
e than I did.
Mike rubbed his hands together. “I can’t believe we’re going to a secret facility.” He seemed excited by the prospect.
“We’ve got to get there first,” I warned him.
We were taken to a rear exit of the building where a large black SUV was waiting for us. The windows were tinted, and it certainly looked like the sort of vehicle that meant business. Another man wearing a dark suit stood beside the driver’s door. Though the vehicle would be self-driving, someone was still needed behind the wheel, just in case something went wrong.
Both men—the driver and the agent who’d come to get us—were armed.
“How far away is the facility?” I asked.
“Only about fifteen minutes, in normal circumstances,” Agent Calicun replied. “But as I’m sure you’ll appreciate, these aren’t normal circumstances. I can’t say for definite since I don’t know what we’ll come up against.”
“Sure.”
He opened the back door. The rear of the vehicle had two rows of seats. I took the front row with Mike, and Casey and Aleandro got in behind us.
I sat anxiously with Mike beside me. Every muscle in my body was bunched with tension, and my breath was trapped tight in my lungs. I’d seen the destruction of the city from a bird’s-eye view when we’d flown in, but I knew seeing it on ground level was going to be even worse. My anxiety was already rocketing at the knowledge I was going to come face to face with one of the bastards who’d taken Tara, and my fear of the journey only served to increase my stress.
Mike reached out and took my hand. He gave my fingers a squeeze, and that same spark of excitement lit up in his blue eyes. He’d always been a bit of an adventurer, enjoying extreme sports at the weekends, often coming back with tales of crazy climbs he’d done or even a bungee jump or two. That wasn’t my kind of thing at all, however. I was interested in space travel, but any other risky business was definitely not my jam.
The vehicle started up, and we drove out of electronic gates which were protected by more armed men. The area directly around the White House wasn’t as badly affected as most of the city. We were able to drive a couple of blocks before the result of the asteroid strike became clear. The emergency services and the army had all been mobilized, but their number were a mere drop in the ocean compared with what was needed.
The wreckage of buildings had tumbled into the road, and the vehicle was forced to swerve around piles of rubble as it negotiated the streets. Numerous cars had been crushed beneath collapsed buildings, and I wondered how many bodies those piles contained. We drove past people huddled on the streets. A mother surrounded by what appeared to be large bags of belongings sat huddled on the sidewalk, two small children clutched tightly to her sides. I wondered what had happened to their home, my heart breaking for them. I wanted to stop the car and go and offer assistance, but what could we do? Just like at the Observatory, it wasn’t as though I could open up the White House to these people, even if I wanted to. It was important the president and the structure of the country remained safe. If something happened that meant we no longer had the president or any kind of government in place, I was sure our country would fall apart. We needed people in a position of power now more than ever. Those were the people who would make the important decisions for us, including whether we took up the offer of evacuating our female population to a new planet.
The two men up front remained stony-faced, despite the carnage around us. Mike’s previously excited expression faded as we were taken deeper into the chaos of the city. It was easy to forget how bad things were out here when you were protected by four walls and armed agents. Driving among the destruction, however, left no room to hide. We passed numerous store fronts with their big display windows smashed. I didn’t know if the damage had been caused by the strike, or if it had been done deliberately, but it was clear the shelves had been looted, with almost nothing remaining. This was the part I feared the most. As much as the Trads frightened me, the knowledge of how brutally man could treat one another in times of a crisis worried me more.
We turned a bend, and the car suddenly slammed on the brakes, throwing us forward. Mike’s arm across my waist held me back from hitting the seat in front. I should have put on my seatbelt.
We were faced with a road block. Only this time, it wasn’t made up of debris from fallen buildings. No, this one looked as though several cars had been driven into the middle of the street, deliberately to prevent people from passing.
Agent Calicun stared around. “Shit.”
“That wasn’t here before,” the other man said.
The agent shook his head. “And it’s not showing up on the recent satellite images, which is what the automatic driver is using to get us there.”
I realized they’d been using some kind of navigation system to get us through the worst of the destroyed streets. But if the pile-up wasn’t showing, it meant it was recent and therefore done deliberately.
The guy behind the wheel hit a button to disable the automatic driver and moved to manual, so he was able to swing around in a three-point turn to take us back the other way.
But he couldn’t drive any farther. “Oh crap.”
The exit to the street had filled with people. A few days ago, they would have been normal civilians going about their ordinary lives. They were businesspeople, and fathers, and students, and grandparents. They were the people who’d been hanging out at the park, checking their phones while their children played, or the ones sitting in their cars in rush-hour traffic, getting frustrated and swearing because they were going to be late. They were the people who’d been meeting friends for coffee, or planning family vacations. They’d all been getting on with their lives, but now they were homeless, and filthy, and injured, and frightened, and angry, and desperate.
I was torn. These were the people we were working to protect, but right now they were looking at us as though we were the problem.
Moving en masse, the crowd erupted in a roar of fury and charged the car.
A body slammed into the side of the vehicle, and I jumped, a scream escaping my throat. The first person was quickly joined by a second and then a third, and before we could even react, people surrounded the vehicle, completely blocking our view out of the windows with chests and torsos, and fists, and faces.
Somehow, the driver kept the SUV crawling forward, despite the number of people ahead of us. I was terrified we’d run them down.
“Please don’t hurt them!” I cried.
Calicun frowned back at me. “They’re keeping us from doing our job, Miss.”
I was getting flashbacks of the moment in the store when the man had been shot.
Hands pummeled against the windows and the sides of the SUV. The vehicle was armored, and the windows bulletproof. They couldn’t get in, but the whole situation was terrifying. Hands reached over the back of my seat, Aleandro squeezing my shoulders in comfort.
“It’ll be okay,” he told me.
I glanced back at him. His jaw was rigid and his expression dark. He was in charge of security back at the Observatory, and I knew it must be killing him to have to sit here and not do anything to help. I appreciated his comforting touch. I felt closer to him than ever after last night.
Angry yells drowned out our voices. People filled every window, fists battering the glass, desperate faces pressed against it. Tears filled my eyes, and I covered my face with my hands. It wasn’t that I wanted to hide away from the truth of what was happening out there, but I couldn’t do anything to help these people. I felt impotent and frustrated.
“We’re doing everything we can, Camille,” Casey said from behind me. He always had a way of knowing exactly what I was thinking.
I dropped my hands from my face and nodded. “I know. But they don’t know that.”
These poor people probably thought we were the privileged few who got to drive around in armored vehicles, hiding away from the danger. Hell, I guessed we were the privileged few.
&nb
sp; “I want to go out there,” I said, “and tell them we’re working to make things right again.”
Mike shook his head. “This isn’t your fault, Camille. And they won’t listen to you. They’re angry and grieving, and they need someone to take it out on.”
“He’s right,” Aleandro agreed. “They can’t see the real enemy, so anyone will do right now.”
Deep down, I knew all the men were right, but it didn’t stop my heart aching. We crawled forward, inch by inch. The crowds continued to pound against the side of the vehicle, moving with us.
A sudden gunshot ricocheted outside. People screamed, and the crowds parted, everyone pushing past each other to get away from any flying bullets. The shooter was firing at our car, and not the people, but they didn’t know that.
Bullets hit metal, and a shriek escaped my throat. I curled into a ball, instinctively covering my face. Mike’s arms were around me, holding me tight.
“It’s okay,” Agent Calicun shouted from the front. “The bullets aren’t going to get through the metal.”
I appreciated the reassurances, but that didn’t stop me cowering. Another bullet hit the outside of the car with a ping!
The bullets hadn’t made it through, but the shooting had served to break up the crowds. Suddenly, a gap appeared, and the driver put his foot down. I didn’t want to look, terrified there would be a thud as one of the protester’s bodies flew off the hood, but none came.
Finally, I dared to lift my head. Everyone had dispersed, and we were making progress. My whole body trembled, my stomach loose with fear. The sickening feeling of helplessness had taken over me again. That had been our new America, and the experience had terrified me.
After ten minutes, the driver turned down a ramp into an underground parking lot. A huge metal barrier blocked the way. The driver leaned out and pressed his thumb to a sensor pad, and the barrier started to rise. When it was high enough for us to get beneath, we kept going and drove down another ramp. Several other similar vehicles were already parked in the lot, and the driver pulled up alongside them. Behind us, the metal barrier slid back into place.
Her Resistance: Planet Athion Series (Darkest Skies Book 2) Page 9
